Monday, November 9, 2015

Ethnicity Plays a Lesser Role in Regionalism in Russia than Many Assume, Shtepa Says

Paul
Goble

Staunton, November 9 – Most people
who predict the disintegration of the Russian Federation focus on ethnicity,
but in fact, as the situation in Karelia shows, ethnicity plays a much smaller
role in mobilizing the population to defend itself against Moscow than do competitive
elections, Vadim Shtepa says.

“Real regionalism,” the Karelian
activist and commentator says, begins not with ethnicity but with local
self-administration,” as the situation in his republic shows.There, the governor appointed by Moscow is an
ethnic Finn, named to his post by Vladimir Putin “according to the same
ethnocratic logic: ‘You’re a Finn; they will take you for one of their own.”

But in fact, Shtepa says, Aleksandr
Khudilaynen has not been accepted in Karelia despite his name and background.
Instead, exactly the reverse has happened: “all local movements, even national
ones, have come out in opposition to this ‘outsider’” (rufabula.com/author/shtepa/848).

And “local
self-administration has found its embodiment in Galina Shirshina,” the
embattled but “freely elected mayor of Petrozavodsk,” the Karelian capital. In
her case, “ethnicity did not play any role; the main thing is that our mayor
was freely elected by citizens.” Shtepa adds that her case is “hardly unique” in
the Russian Federation.

Shtepa’s argument prompts three
further observations: First, there is an obvious but not always carefully made distinction
between ethnicity (nationality) and local identity, with the latter frequently and
even powerfully trumping the former especially if Moscow tries to use the
former alone to run a regional government.

Consequently, a local ethnic Russian
could become a more popular and powerful spokesperson for a non-Russian
republic than a member of the titular nationality not associated with the
republic for most or all of his or her career especially if he or she came to
office by election rather than appointment.

Second, elections matter even more
in terms of regional assertiveness than does ethnicity, something that provides
yet another reason why Vladimir Putin is so opposed to such voting. If he
allowed it many places, he could find himself confronted by the kind of
regional restiveness that could shake the system even if he orchestrated it so
that an ethnic Russian invariably won.

And third, because both ethnicity
and elections are resources for regionalists, the most powerful regionalist
challenge is still likely to emerge where the two correspond, where a local
member of the titular nationality wins an election and thus can draw on both a
primordial tie and the support of voters.